


Mutiny

by JoAsakura



Series: a tale in three parts (with an epilogue) [2]
Category: Mass Effect
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-03-22
Updated: 2012-03-22
Packaged: 2017-11-02 08:29:15
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,043
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/366993
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JoAsakura/pseuds/JoAsakura
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Shepard is trying to cope.</p><p>follows custody: http://archiveofourown.org/works/361670</p>
            </blockquote>





	Mutiny

 

The sound of the Reaper's cannon haunts Shepard, even in sleep. Persistent, unyielding, the hollow moans of a billion dead souls. A sound that, cuts through the fog of whispers, muttered the ghosts clinging to the edges of his dream .

Mordin, Eve. Miranda. Quarians. Geth. Asari. Turians. Humans, so many people whose names he'll never know, dying, screaming, burning even as he burns in front of his own eyes and...

~~

Shepard awoke with a too-familiar start, mouth dry as a tuchanka desert and eyes wet with half-shed tears. For one moment, one horrible, endless moment, he didn't know where he was, he couldn't move and panic threatened to drown him.

In the next heartbeat, though, the implacable training set in and he collected himself until only the faintest tremble remained.

Two pairs of legs were twined with his, and he closed his eyes for a moment, running his cheek over the coarse scruff of Cortez's hair, the pilot's head nestled in the crook of his arm.

Kaidan's hand was curled lightly on his hip, and Shepard could feel the Major's gentle breath, faintly ticklish on the back of his neck. The three of them fit together remarkably well, and the warmth of their skin helped him force the last of the tremors down.

He lay there, Steve's cock soft and heavy against his thigh, Kaidan's nestled behind him, trying to drown out the his nightmare by replaying the unexpected gift they had given him, and desperately trying to remember where he'd left the mild tranqs that Dr. Chakwas had given him without comment after he'd gone to the sickbay (Thessia dying all around him and the unthinkable failure, given shape by Kai Leng's retreating back) and his hands simply wouldn't stop shaking.

"Mn." Cortez stirred against him and Shepard tried to make himself relax into the sleepy touch of the pilot's fingertips against his jaw. "Hey. You ok?"

"Fine." Shepard whispered, pressing a gentle kiss to Cortez's forehead. He let his hand drift over Kaidan's knuckles and up his wrist before carefully extricating himself from them both.

"Shep?" Kaidan half burrowed himself in a pillow and peered over the edge. 

"Back in a sec." Shepard leaned over and kissed him as well. 

He was so lucky, the commander thought. That they had both come to him, and they both *loved* him. They didn't deserve to see him break down now. Not now.

He shut the door for his small metal bathroom and let the cold water run over his head.

~~

Cortez realised that both he and the Major were staring at the bathroom with similar looks of concern. "He's not ok, is he." It wasn't a question.

"No." Kaidan sat up, scratching through his hair. "So much is riding on his shoulders.. he wakes up a lot like that." 

Cortez lay back and stretched under the cover. "And here I thought you were moving too slowly for words."

Kaidan slugged him lightly. "I may be bad with people, but i know how to be discreet, lieutenant." He joked, then shook his head. "He doesn't want to let us down."

They looked at each other and nodded in silent accord. 

~~

Miserably, Shepard realised he wasn't going to be able to spend the rest of the war locked in his bathroom.

(What is WRONG with you?) a voice very much like his own said in his head. He imagined it to be coming out of devilish little red VI that he had seen in a vid as a child. (sitting wide-eyed in front of the badly cracked screen in an overcrowded, underfunded child welfare centre, eating the government-ration protein bar that claimed to taste like chicken and strawberry but had the same exact non-taste as everything else. In a few years, he'd miss the regularity of those meals.) 

(Cortez. Alenko. Out there. You. In here. JACKASS.) The voice continued.

(It's ok, it's ok) the angelic blue counterpart soothed. (You just need a few minutes to get the anxiety back under control and..) 

(AND THE BED IS GETTING COLD.) 

Shepard looked up in the mirror, if only to reaffirm that he wasn't seeing things on top of hearing them, and cursed the amount of television he'd watched as a child.

"Shep." Kaidan's voice muffled through the door. "That is a tactically shitty position, you know."

(JACKASS)

"Shut up." Shepard grumbled, and he wasn't sure who he was talking to.

"Open the door, Commander." Cortez added and Shepard sighed, tapping the lock.

"You are both really pushy for people who supposedly report to me." He made a weak attempt at snark and Kaidan's eyebrows lifted. 

"Technically, as a major, i outrank you, Commander." He said with a little quirk of a grin as he took Shepard's hand.

"we still have a few hours before the rest of the fleet moves into position, you know." Cortez added, taking the commander's other hand in his own.

"You're ganging up on me again?" Shepard let them lead him back to the safe haven of bed and it's heavy comforter. "I think this is mutiny." It was foolish, he knew, but his heart felt lighter with those two sets of hands twined so firmly with his own.

"I know you're worried." Kaidan gave him a shove and looked them over with a tight smile. "But look at what you've done. You've given everyone hope, Shep."

"Take some of that for yourself." Cortez said, gently stroking the fine hairs on shepard's arm. "Take as much of it as you need. We told you, you're not alone."

"We're here for you. And we're with you every step of the way." Kaidan kissed him, pausing to squeeze Cortez's hand in affirmation. "Lean on us, goddamnit. Sometimes it's ok."

Shepard stared up at the starfield through his ceiling for a moment the kissed them each, roughly in turn. "About that custody, thing." He said, letting their heat cover him. "I'm not giving either one of you up, so you'll need to work that out."

"I think we can manage that, Sir." Cortez whispered in his ear, and the there was no room for the moan of the reaper's cannon or the screaming of ghosts in the place they made for him, safe between their bodies.


End file.
